The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1887-02-15

work OF women is as plenty as it is, and
the ruling market rates for it are so
low, even the best disposed employers
VIII hardly see their way to doing
better than some of them are now doing.
The remedy lies in the increasing num-
Der OF occupations daily opening to
/, women.
How does one live on such stipend
a good proportion of the girls live at
home with their parents When they
are self-dependent the problem is
harder. When l put the query to q
comely brunette the other day, she told
me she earned SIS a week standing
behind the counter selling children s
stockings. With another girl from the
glove counter, she hired a room up
town. where rents were a trife lower.
Three dollars per week was what it cost
them Adding to her share OF that 60
cents per week tor car fare she had 81 80
from which to contrive board, clothes
and amusement for seven days. The
board she managed by ransacking the
neig hborhood for cheap restaurants, by
depending a good deal on the baker for
dry bread lunches and teas, and by the
vocational arrival of a box of cold meats
I'd pies from her aunt on a country
farm. Clothing she had bought none.
If her original stock gave out before her
IS grew into Sc or 81, she hardly knew
where more were to come from Amuse-
ments that required a cash equivalent
as q matter of course, were not abun-
| dant.
Bat the saIesgirl is not altogether a
victim. She has a chance, from her
involuntary post of observation. to
| learn deal of human nature, and not
unfrcqueutly she improves it. She
grows old in the service, and from her
post behind the counter she sees women
come and women go, while the growth
Of the city goes on forever. | have in
mind hLtIe white haired hat trimmer,
whose German accent is still perceptI-
| BILE. though she has adjusted ribbons
and feathers for successive generations
of New York bellies for forty years now.
| She has watched the house she works
! for grow from little 12X25 cabin to an
establishment whose floor area is mea-
surnd in these latter years by acres Her
daugh erS sell ribbons and embroideries
| rom its show cases, her sons drive its
| delivery wagons, hep grandchildren are
| reckoned among its cash girls. Her life
has been merged in that of the store, but
[ don't think it has been altogether an
unhappy one.
She believe in the Saturday halt
holiday ?Sheis too devoted to the house
that has absorbed<her energies to ask
for it. She remembers when all hands
worked till Ii o'clock at night six
nights a week, and thinks a O'Clock
closing hour three fourths of tbs year
holiday enough for her. Still the holi
day agitation is III the air, and if the
girls could carry their point,if the shop
ping world could be induced to DO its
buying in five days and half instead OF
six, there would be roster cheeks and
brighter eyes among the $4,000, and
fewer gray hairs, too; for the lines of
care come early when the days work is
full of worry and the nights rest dis
turbed for fear of a discharge. The
anxious season is about over for the
present, though. The ak has been busy
since the holidays, but she whose head
has stayed on her shoulders through
January is reasonably safe to hold over
for the Easter trade. The saleswoman
breatbes easier, and if the foorwalker
takes her to see A Parlor Match or A
Bunch Of Keys, or any other mirth-
provoker Tonight, she will laugh more
heartily than for weeks before.